Project Management

Youth Challenge Competition Fund – "Actions speak louder…"

Sarah led the partnership of the National Youth Agency, YouthBank UK and Corporate Culture to deliver the Youth Challenge Competition Fund known as "Actions speak louder …" funded by the then Department of Education and Skills with a budget of £2 million.

The achievements included:

Promoting youth participation in decision-making. Success in the recruitment, training and support of 22 young grant makers who formed the panel which decided the rules and assessment criteria, assessed the bids and awarded prize money to the 30 winners and runners up.

Enabling youth empowerment and self-development. Young people as panel members and project leaders learnt new skills, which in some cases led to new opportunities for employment.

Increased awareness by lead local authority officers and local councillors of young people’s skills and levels of responsibility in grant making, which led to their giving young people greater opportunities to commission services for young people locally and to inspect and evaluate those services.

"Sarah undertook a major high-profile and complex project, which she has accomplished very successfully. She has very high standards for her own work and that of others."Tom Wylie, OBE, then Chief Executive, National Youth Agency